On 10/02/06 21:07, Daniel Kristjansson wrote:
>On Mon, 2006-10-02 at 20:04 -0400, D. Hugh Redelmeier wrote:
>>>>Last week, I came across a previously observed bug in mythreplex,
>>learned how to build Myth, isolated the bug, added the information to
>>TRAC, and proposed a fix in the email list.
>>>>My suggested fix has been ignored without comment. Another fix has
>>been adopted, so that is OK. Except that I think that my fix is
>>cleaner.
>>>>>:-| Maybe it was missed? Who did you assign the ticket too?
>Pretty sure that's exactly what happened. Here's the whole story. (I'm
really missing my Veronica Mars, so maybe I got into the detective work
a bit too much.)
Background (guesses since you didn't specify, but the facts lead me to
believe they're good guesses):
Ticket: #2420 ( http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/2420 )
E-mails:
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/226840#226840http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/users/226839#226839http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/226949#226949http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/dev/226971#226971
(226840 was sent before 226839, but the archive received it after. More
on that later.)
So, in 226840, you identified the bug and suggested an approach for
fixing it ("You could prevent this particular crash by increasing the
array size
but I don't know that the program would then be correct.") and asked
where to report the information. In 226839, you answered your own
question (19 minutes later, and likely before the list had re-mailed the
first e-mail--keep reading).
Then, you went to Trac to make a comment and add yourself to the CC list
( http://svn.mythtv.org/trac/ticket/2420#comment:5 ). You did this at
basically the same time that you sent out 226839 saying you'd found
where to report the issue (by the timestamps, you made the comment in
Trac 4 minutes before you sent the e-mail (timezone differences make it
look quite different, though), but either way).
Your Trac comment was made and the first two e-mails (226840 and 226839)
were sent between
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/commits/226808#226808 and
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/lists/mythtv/commits/226842#226842 .
Notice that your Trac comment does not appear within that thread of Trac
comments on the mailing list archive. More on that in a moment.
The next important thing to happen was Paul's committing a fix about 9
hours after your e-mail/Trac comment. Then, about an hour and a half
later, you replied to the commit in 226949 and about 2 hours later, you
replied to 226949 (your reply to the commit) in 226971. Note also, that
until 226949 (90 minutes after the commit), you hadn't provided any code.
So, why doesn't your Trac comment appear in the thread for Ticket
#2420? Well, it's not your fault. It just so happens that your comment
was made on Trac while Isaac and Snow-Man were hard at work moving
mythtv.org (the list server and also svn.mythtv.org, the Trac server) to
the new server hardware (generously donated by Silicon Mechanics--see
http://mythtv.org/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=121 for
details). So, when you made the comment, Trac was not yet sending out
e-mails notifying -commits subscribers of the change (meaning it's
likely Paul, who committed a fix 9 hours later, may not have seen your
comment before developing his own).
Even if he did see your comment--which only identifies the source of the
problem, and doesn't recommend a fix--he probably wasn't motivated to
track down the message to which you referred in your comment. That
issue could have been alleviated by your including a link to the e-mail
on the list archives (which, unfortunately may require waiting a couple
of hours after sending for the archive to index the post). You can get
the link by searching the archive for the post and then copying the
"Permalink" link.
However, an even better approach for getting your code accepted is
posting a patch to the appropriate ticket. Once you identify a bug, you
can attach a patch that corrects the problem. Or, if you don't yet have
the code, but have a plan and are afraid someone else will beat you to
the punch (that actually happened to me on a ticket--as it did you ;),
you can post a comment on the ticket saying you're developing a patch
and provide a description of the approach or a link to a post on the
list describing the approach (sometimes I'll use the link to the last
post in the thread to which I'm replying and mention my reply will be
beneath the linked post once the archive gets it--but make sure you have
a working e-mail client that threads the e-mails properly, and if you
changed the subject on your post (even with "[was ...]" or whatever), it
won't appear in the thread on the archive.
So, the short answer to your question is, "Very unlucky timing." And,
the moral to the story is that you should wait a while before spending
any money on Lottery tickets. :)
(Wonder if this would be an episode mystery or an over-arching season
mystery on Veronica...)
Mike